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“Black Girl Bitter”: A Continuation of the African-American Oral Tradition

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In Focus: Representations of Black Womanhood from February 8, 2021 to March 27, 2021 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Fiona Yang

Spoken word is defined by Parmar and Bain as a contemporary art form with elements of verse, music, and theater. The art form draws directly from elements of African-American culture: spirituals, blues, jazz, protest songs, and hip-hop culture. The musical and oral tradition of African-American culture goes back centuries. Darwin T. Turner asserts in his paper, African-American History and the Oral Tradition, that “[oral literature and oral history] are well-established as a part of Black culture.” Turner, a prominent scholar who spent his career fighting for the recognition of African-American literature, points out that early on, there would have been no alternative to the oral tradition. Slaves were not taught to read or write, and writing implements – paper, pen, and ink – were prohibitively expensive. Even if they could write, Turner reasons, it would have been unwise to record their thoughts about their histories and experiences in a form that could be found by their masters. Instead, African-American history in the time of slavery can be traced through folktales and folksongs, the most notable of which were spirituals. Spirituals “dealt with religious themes – faith, freedom, hope and salvation.” In addition, the spiritual often contained coded messages advising other slaves on how to escape bondage (Brown).

While spoken word was preceded by spirituals, it draws direct influence from later movements such as the the Civil Rights Movement. During the Civil Rights Movement, prominent authors, musicians, and performers – including but not limited to Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay – created work centered around the African-American experience, drawing on the rich oral tradition of African-American history. It is within the Civil Rights Movement that the most relevant predecessor of the spoken word is found. During the 60s and 70s, organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam diverged from other civil rights groups to form the Black Power Movement. The Black Power Movement was a revolutionary movement that believed in racial equality and economic empowerment through an explicitly militant lens. The Black Arts Movement, the “aesthetic and spiritual sister” of the Black Power Movement, was the artistic and creative arm of the movement (Parmar and Bain). It consisted of an “informal association of Black nationalist intellectuals and artists during the mid-1960s to mid-1970s,” and has been cited as the direct precedent and inspiration for spoken word poetry (Parmar and Bain).

Black Arts placed particular emphasis on poetry, purportedly because it was short enough to be recited at rallies while still inciting and moving a crowd. When the Black Arts Movement split from internal political schisms, several artists and poets made the transition to the mainstream. These poets include Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. Ironically, despite the movement itself being plagued with issues of sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism, several Black female poets “rose to lasting fame” (Black Past). These poets inspired a generation of rappers and slam poets that cite the movement explicitly as inspiration.

The Black Arts Movement (1965-1975)
Members of the Black Arts Movement (1965 – 1975)

The Poetry Foundation notes that “spoken word poems frequently refer to issues of social justice, politics, race, and community.” Sadie Alao’s Black Girl Bitter indeed decries the marginalization of Black women in healthcare, particularly in the realm of mental illness. Alao takes care to debunk the stereotypes that lie at the heart of medical bias: that Black women are preternaturally strong, loud, and “crazy,” as she recites in her poem. These assumptions subconsciously perpetuate discriminate treatment at the systemic level: maternal maternity is higher for Black women, health disparities that disproportionately affect Black women receive less research and government funding, and Black women are underrepresented in key biomedical research datasets (Endofound). But those assumptions also create difficulties at the individual level, where it is assumed that Black women are able to shoulder more emotional labor than their white counterpoints, or than Black men. Alao, in Black Girl Bitter, emphasizes the vulnerability and exhaustion of Black women who labor under those stereotypes, inviting both sympathy and fury.

Illustration of a poet performing spoken word poetry
Illustration by Francesca Mahaney, Pratt Institute

Several parallels could be drawn when comparing Black Girl Bitter to the African-American oral tradition and the history of the spoken word. Previous movements – the Black Arts Movement, the Black Power Movement, the Civil Rights Movement – created art that examined the systemic impacts of racial discrimination. In contrast, it seems the next generation has turned introspective and personal. Art can be dedicated to individual-level analysis and emotional impacts. In addition, there is a parallel to be drawn between Alao advocating specifically for Black women’s mental health and the Black Arts Movement at large. As the Smithsonian puts it, “The experimental and often radical statements of the Black Arts Movement… expanded the boundaries of African American cultural expression, and thereby provided space for increasingly alternative political ideologies to be raised, discussed, and acknowledged.” The Black Arts Movement pushed the envelope enough to allow nuanced, sympathetic, and emotional discussion of Black women’s mental health in the mainstream; in turn, Alao is pushing the envelope with her own critical analysis of Black culture, provoking discussion and making space for other Black female artists to create their own art on the subject.

One final parallel can be drawn from Alao’s artist statement. In that statement, Alao turns to a higher power in her search for absolution from mental health. She writes, “I formed a relationship with God and He healed me.” In doing so, she has linked Black Girl Bitter to the rich African-American oral tradition of spirituality. Just as slaves and leaders in the Civil Rights movement alike drew on spirituality for strength, Alao now infuses her slam poetry with the same “faith, freedom, hope, and salvation.”

Black Girl Bitter is inextricably linked to the history of its chosen form, and is an even stronger piece with knowledge of the history behind it.

For more information on Representation of Black Womanhood and related events, visit https://thestamp.umd.edu/stamp_gallery

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